


Rain Must Fall

by SennyriNamis23



Series: Play The Game (of Love) [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiple Inquisitors, One-Shot, it's felix, mention of canon character death, we all know felix dies and im very sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26020549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SennyriNamis23/pseuds/SennyriNamis23
Summary: A letter from Tevinter arrives for Dorian with some news about an old friend. Fortunately, he has some new ones to help him process it all.I changed the timeline a bit, so the letter comes after Last Resort of Good Men because I do what I want B)
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus, Male Lavellan/Dorian Pavus
Series: Play The Game (of Love) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044882
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Rain Must Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Bioware can't tell me what to do. I've got 3 canon Inquisitors, 2 of whom appear here. Yveriel and Ellior Lavellan are twins, and I have a long complicated backstory for them which basically whittles down to: they're actually city elves, but got adopted by the Lavellan Clan. They're the only blood-family they have and they are super close. Ellior's a mage, who was trained for a bit in the Fereldan Circle. Yveriel is a spy, and was at the Conclave as Leliana's second-in-command. My third Inquisitor, Nihkaani Adaar (who doesn't show up in this, but is mentioned) is the holder of the Anchor.
> 
> Anyway that's probably more information than you needed, but what can I say? I've always been very good at sharing B)

“You wanted to see me, Yveriel?”

She looked up to him with an even expression on her face, then returned her gaze back to the manuscript on her lap. She sat at a table in the corner of the tavern, a mostly empty flask of ale her only company. Her legs were crossed beneath her, knees hanging off the sides of the small chair. And in the dim light, he couldn’t read her at all.

“Yes,” she replied, “Have a seat, Dorian.”

He eyed her, then sat across from her. Cabot brought him a glass of wine without prompting, which was odd because Cabot didn’t serve anyone if he could help it. Especially not the Tevinter mage.

“A bit early for drinking, but I’ll never turn down a glass or two,” he commented dryly.

Yveriel didn’t reply. She pulled what looked like a piece of paper out of her book, and slid it across the table to him.

Upon closer inspection, it was an envelope. Unopened, even. Addressed to him, sent by Magister Maevaris Tilani. That was a name he hadn’t thought of in a long time...

He grunted at the thought of what someone back home would want to say to him, “Do I even want to read it?”

She shrugged, eyes still down in her lap, “Leliana will make me if you don’t. Someone has to read it. Might as well be you.”

With an exaggerated sigh, he took a long sip of wine before he pulled the letter open and read it to himself. He got nearly a paragraph in before he took another sip. And then another.

“That bad, huh?” Yveriel asked, and when he looked up, she was sitting up with her elbows resting on the table, that bright green gaze aimed directly at him. The book she’d been reading was next to her, but closed on the table. He’d gotten her attention.

“A letter regarding Felix, Alexius’ son,” he said, unable to mask the fondness in his voice, “He went to the Magisterium, stood on the Senate floor and told them of the Inquisition. A glowing testimonial, I’m informed. No news on the reaction, but everyone back home is talking. Felix always was as good as his word.”

Yveriel didn’t ask him to clarify, just reached across the table and put her hand on his forearm. Strangely, it was comforting.

“I’m sorry, Dorian. Are you alright?”

He shrugged, but dragged his gaze from her, “He was ill, and therefore on borrowed time anyway.”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but kept her mouth tightly closed, lips forming a thin line.

Maybe it was the wine, but he found himself waxing nostalgic, “Felix used to sneak me treats from the kitchen when I was working late in his father’s study. ‘Don’t get into trouble on my behalf,’ I’d tell him. ‘I like trouble,’ he’d say. Tevinter could use more mages like him - those who put the good of others above themselves.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to meet him,” Yveriel replied, “He sounds like he was a good man.”

“He was the best of us, truly.”

He paused for a moment, then barked out a laugh, “Something tells me you wouldn’t have enjoyed your time at Redcliffe’s castle, though. Considering I nearly got your brother killed.”

She grinned, leaning back and taking a swig of her ale, “Don’t you think I’ll forget about that, Pavus. You’re _lucky_ I wasn’t there.”

Dorian nodded, “I am very lucky, indeed.”

They both laughed quietly for a moment before silence fell over them and a pensive and fond expression came over Yveriel’s face.

“Ellior’s up in our room if you want to find him,” she said finally, quietly, “If you need him.”

He had to admit, the thought of processing Felix’s death did sound like a far more appealing activity with Ellior than his knife-wielding sister.

But Dorian paused and then took another sip of his wine, “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll finish this glass with you first. But thank you.”

She nodded with a small smile that reminded him so much of Ellior’s. Perhaps the lighting was better now, or he simply just noticed it, but he realized how much alike the Lavellan twins looked. Yveriel’s face and eyes were a bit rounder, but they had the same long, thin ears, the same shade of green eyes, the same straight nose. Yveriel was tight-laced in a way that Ellior was not - which suited Dorian’s tastes just fine - but they clearly had more than heritage in common.

They spent another quiet moment with their drinks before Dorian looked up at her with a question.

“You truly didn’t read the letter before you asked me here? Did you know what would be in it?”

She put her tankard on the table, “I’d heard the reports coming out of Tevinter.”

He nodded, “So you knew about Felix before I got here.”

“I did,” she replied, “But I didn’t think you wanted to hear it from me. Given Magister Tilani’s reputation, I guessed she would at least mention his passing.”

“So you brought me here… to make me feel better?”

Yveriel raised her eyebrow at him, “Yes? I know you were close. There was probably a time when you considered him your only friend. I didn’t want you to be alone when you learned about his death. That’s all.”

Dorian grinned mischievously, “You’ve got a soft spot for me.”

She rolled her eyes, “I don’t know if you noticed, but the whole damn Inquisition has a soft spot for you. Despite their whingings, not a single person is actually trying to kill or badmouth you.”

He laughed, “Not a single person!? Well, that is progress! Did Tevinter start doing charity work while I wasn’t looking?”

Yveriel shook her head, then drained the last of her mug, “Regardless of your grandstanding, you’re a good man, Dorian. And despite almost getting my brother killed, I like you. My brother has stronger feelings than that. Keep it up, and everyone will be your friend.”

Dorian put a hand to his chest dramatically, “Yveriel Lavellan, are you saying that we are _friends_?”

“For now,” she warned, but her eyes glittered playfully, “Now go find Ellior. I’m sure he needs a distraction from all the work he’s doing.”

He stood up with a bow and a wink before he put a hand on her shoulder gratefully, “Thank you, Yveriel. I’m fortunate that Felix wasn’t the only decent sort kicking around Thedas.”

She smiled genuinely up at him.

\---

Dorian looked around the Main Hall as he approached the door that led to the Lavellans’ room. He assumed most people probably already knew about their… situation, but didn’t really fancy the idea of Ellior being interrogated later about why some visiting Orlesian noblewoman was greatly offended by the Tevinter mage sneaking into his private quarters.

Fortunately, there were no Orlesian nobles to be seen.

So he pushed open the door and slid into the hallway which remained remarkably unrepaired. This was evidently the place every unclaimed board of wood, every unused crate, every tattered banner had been thrown. The path up to the suite was narrow, but traversable for one person at a time. It seemed an odd place to leave extra materials, but then again, it was one of the few places around the fortress that wasn’t meant to be seen by the public eye.

He could hear Ellior from upstairs, grumbling and then pondering. A vaguely familiar female voice replied enthusiastically. Dorian couldn’t hear exactly what they were talking about, but figured the meeting was interruptable if Yveriel hadn’t said anything about it.

When he reached the top of the stairs, Ellior was sitting at his desk, hand to his face, lost in thought. The dwarven arcanist - Dagna? Was that her name? - sat in front of him, taking diligent notes on a thick pad of paper.

“I don’t want to expose you to the stuff,” Ellior said, rubbing at his temples.

Dagna protested, “But regular lyrium doesn’t affect me like it does other people - that’s why dwarves mine it. Why would this be any different?”

He sighed, “I don’t know why, but the only evidence we have of its effect are anecdotes from Varric about Knight-Commander Meredith and his brother, Bartrand. Who was definitely a dwarf. Both of them went completely insane and murdered people. I won’t let that happen to you, Dagna.”

“It’s not like we have any alternatives. I’ll just have to be careful, make sure I check in on myself often to make sure I’m not joining a cult or getting emotionally attached to a rock.”

Dorian leaned against the wall with his arms across his chest, just watching the two of them. Ellior had told him before about the issues with red lyrium - namely, that it makes anyone who gets near the stuff for too long go nuts - and had mentioned that he and Dagna were trying to find a way to study it. The Red Templars were using the red variety in lieu of regular lyrium and it made them rather formidable in battle, so the two of them were trying to find ways to combat the red lyrium without actually using it. It wasn’t going well, evidently.

It was Ellior who noticed him first, as he looked up with a start.

“Oh! Dorian!” he said, then returning his attention to his colleague, “Dagna, talk to Varric about Bartrand. Maybe he can give us a better idea of a timeline and symptoms that we can watch for.”

“You bet!” she replied, hopping off the chair and waving to Dorian on her way back down the stairs. He sent a confused wave back.

“Wait, Dagna!” Ellior called after her, standing at his desk.

She stopped in her tracks and looked back at him, but all of her fingers were twitching and she looked like she might about explode with energy.

“Be gentle when you talk to Varric. It’s exciting research for you, but it’s painful family trauma for him. If he gets cagey or looks like he wants to be anywhere but there, take a break. We’re not in that much of a hurry.”

She saluted him with a brisk nod, “You got it, captain.”

And then she disappeared down the stairs. But Dorian had the distinct sense that she was _skipping_ back to the undercroft.

Ellior put his dark-rimmed reading glasses on the desk with a sigh and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

“Rough meeting?” Dorian asked, pushing himself off the wall.

He blew out a harsh exhale, “This red lyrium business is exhausting. The more we learn about it, the more dangerous it becomes, and the less comfortable I am with having it anywhere near Skyhold. But we have to research it. We just can’t figure out how to do that safely.”

Dorian hummed in response.

Ellior looked up at him and tilted his head in a question, “Was there something you needed? You don’t usually make your way up here.”

He fiddled with Magister Tilani’s letter in his hand, which Ellior immediately noticed. He approached slowly, hands outstretched.

“Is everything okay, Dorian?” he asked softly, taking his free hand and intertwining their fingers together, his brows furrowed and his lips turned down just slightly.

Dorian really thought he was ready for this. Really thought that he’d already prepared himself for Felix’s death. Really believed that the strongest of his emotions had already washed away. But as Ellior held his hand, he realized he wasn’t. He wasn’t ready at all.

“Felix is dead,” he choked out, “The Blight… it caught up with him.”

“Oh, Dorian,” Ellior replied, untangling their fingers to wrap his arms around his neck in a hug, “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t exactly unexpected,” he rebuffed, keeping his voice from trembling.

Ellior huffed against him, squeezing him a little tighter, “That doesn’t mean you can’t be upset about it.”

Dorian sighed, and then wrapped his own arms around Ellior, crumpling the letter in his hand, “I know.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ellior asked.

He paused for a long moment, but it was hard to concentrate with Ellior’s little breaths hitting his neck, the smell of him enveloping them, and his hand cradling the back of his head comfortingly.

“Maybe,” was all he could say.

Ellior lowered himself, breaking their embrace, before taking Dorian’s hand again and leading him to the couch in front of the fireplace. He sat at one end with his legs crossed beneath him, then urged Dorian to join him.

“Talk to me,” he said, gently pulling him onto the couch and encouraging him to lay down so his head was on his lap, “What are you feeling?”

Regret. Shame. Sorrow. Overwhelming grief.

“Too much,” he said instead.

Ellior nodded, then began to run his fingers through Dorian’s hair, rubbing gently at his scalp with his fingertips. He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask anything else, just sat with him, running his fingers through his hair. Dorian closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but otherwise just tried to focus on the feeling of Ellior around his head. Gentle, soft, comforting. Things Dorian himself had never been, nor dared to hope for in a partner.

For a while, they sat in comfortable silence. Ellior ran his hands through Dorian’s hair, and Dorian reveled in the feeling. But it didn’t take long for memories of Felix to threaten to overwhelm him again. Not that the two of them had ever been intimate like this, but in some ways, Ellior was a lot like him. Recklessly selfless, for one. Incredibly brilliant, for another.

Ellior leaned down and kissed his forehead without so much as a word. And Dorian smiled even as a tear rolled down the side of his face.

And he started to reminisce. About Felix, about Alexius, about the research he did before it all went wrong. It seemed like a lifetime ago now, but those were the few good memories he had of Tevinter. He told Ellior about how Alexius picked him off the street after a long night of drinking, and had been the first person to see more than a troublemaker. He told Ellior about the research he did with Alexius and Felix together - it wasn’t time travel magic, but rather the effects of using various types of magic on the bodies of the mages who used them. Their hope had been to prove that blood magic - even when the mage’s own blood wasn’t sacrificed - was far more detrimental to the body than other kinds of magic, and wasn’t worth the extra power it provided. He told Ellior about the time he took Felix into the slums - his thought had been to get into a little debauchery, have a little fun, but Felix immediately saw the poor and destitute and felt compelled to help them. They spent the next week building a shelter and setting it up with a steady source of supplies. He told Ellior about the long nights of working, about disrupting parties, about adventures in the city and the countryside. He told Ellior about Felix’s kindness, about Alexius’ warmth, about their shared passions to do the right thing, regardless of its popularity in Minrathous.

Ellior listened happily, asking questions and making comments whenever it felt like he might be overwhelmed with his own thoughts. And the whole time, he rubbed Dorian’s head with his fingers - sometimes with long strokes, sometimes in small circles, sometimes back and forth.

He couldn’t say exactly how long they sat together, only that when he opened his eyes again, the sun was beginning to set over the mountains, casting a gentle orange glow over the two of them. Ellior was looking at him, his bright green eyes sparkling in the light.

“I’ve totally messed up your hair,” he admitted with a grin.

Dorian laughed, “It’s nothing I can’t fix with a little hair gel magic.”

Pulling his hands from his hair and resting one on Dorian’s chest, Ellior chuckled, “And here I thought you were just naturally perfect.”

“Whoever said I wasn’t?” he replied playfully, feeling a bit more like himself again.

Ellior laughed outright this time, and when Dorian looked up at him, he was sure he’d never seen anyone more lovely. His smile could brighten a dungeon, his laugh could soften a golem, his eyes could heal any wound, and his freckles could cure any illness.

Dorian sat up and pulled him closer, cupping his scarred cheek with one hand and holding his waist with the other. Ellior leaned forward, still smiling, and touched his forehead to Dorian’s, letting their noses brush against each other softly.

“Are you alright?” he asked after a moment, quiet and serious again.

Dorian nodded, “I’m alright.”

Ellior slipped his hand to press against Dorian’s exposed chest - but it wasn’t anything more than a touch. Like he needed to reassure him he was there, but wasn’t sure how to do that more than he already was. Dorian moved his hand from Ellior’s waist to his hand, carefully bringing it up so he could kiss his palm. He could feel the shiver that went down his partner’s back, which brought him no small amount of pride.

“Thank you,” Dorian said, lowering his hand and weaving their fingers together.

“That’s what I’m here for,” Ellior replied, moving ever so slightly so he could finally kiss him.

They’d kissed dozens of times, but Dorian never tired of it. Even when it was chaste - a peck on the cheek, a goodnight kiss, a fleeting brush of their lips as they passed each other in the library - Ellior’s kisses set his heart on fire. The other men he’d kissed had been gruff or needy or lustful. They were full of passion and heat and desire. But Ellior’s were patient. They were soft. They were comforting. They didn’t ask for more. They didn’t demand anything. They were a gift - a gift that Ellior gave frequently and freely, true, but they were _given to_ him, not _taken from_ him.

Dorian pulled himself out of his syrupy thoughts and sighed, “I suppose someone should tell Alexius about Felix.”

Ellior pulled himself back, “Do you want me to do it?”

He shook his head, “No. I’ll do it. I’ve been meaning to say hello since Nihkaani started having him do research for the Inquisition, anyway.”

He nodded, “Okay. Do you want me there?”

Dorian grinned, “As moral support?”

“Or whatever else you need.”

He squeezed Ellior’s hand, “I should be fine. But I appreciate the thought.”

Ellior leaned forward to kiss him again, “Let me know if you change your mind. I can always find an excuse to be there.”

Dorian smiled, licking the taste of him off his lips. Oh, this man was going to do him in, wasn’t he?


End file.
